The cold snap we’ve experienced these past few days, with temperatures dropping into hat-and-gloves weather, has had three effects on me:
- I have an incredible craving for cheesecake
- I’ve gotten a bit depressed and existential
- I’ve realized that where I am is where I’ll stay for the next while – so it’s time to hunker down and get comfortable.
The first two are predictable, but the third is a bit of
a surprise. I live in Canada,
folks. By the time the crocuses bloom again, I will quite probably be a Canadian
Resident, which is a few cents shy of a citizen. That means I’ll be working,
socializing, and making my home in a foreign country.
Crazy!!!
Of course, I’m responding with all my typical practical wherewithal, by making lists of small items we need to make the apartment comfortable. I’ve planned a final trip to Ohio
to bring over the rest of the books and things I’ll want for the winter. But the real
adjustment is emotional: This is it, folks. For real. I’m practically Canadian.
I’ve been here since June, soaking in Canadian TV,
Canadian radio, Canadian comedy (it’s kind of different, let me tell you), and somehow,
I’m getting used to it. It doesn’t help that I keep saying “eh” in various
grammatical/semantic contexts. Or that I
don’t even notice the weatherwoman’s Scottish accent anymore. I didn’t even
get mad when I had to pay $6 for a birthday card last week! But thankfully I
still have a bit of my American-ness. I think it is crazy how polite Canadian
police are on TV. I still get slightly riled up at the price of cheese. And I
still do a double-take when I see someone on TV who has crooked teeth.
But seriously, I know very little about Canada so far.
I know it is very, very big, that I live in the most fertile part of it, that
we have lots of coal and water, and that Stephen Harper is a bit of a menace. I know Toronto is the most
diverse city in the world, the job market is very competitive; I know where to
get locally grown food and where to meet with friends. These are salient pieces
of information but the whole story isn’t filled in yet. Immigrating to another
country, no matter how “similar” to your own, is a big deal. You catch bits and
pieces like someone hearing a conversation in another language (metaphorically),
but you have to wait months or years before you can have a real give-and-take in
that conversation. So far it's felt like an experiment, but the big adjustments are ahead—getting a
job, citizenship, and finding a way to participate in Canadian civic life,
which I suspect is more complex than Americans like to think. But hopefully the
journey will continue to be fun, polite, and ridiculously expensive, eh?
